George Higgins - A change of gravity

"But I have to warn you: That machine wasn't cheap. Neither were the other renovations and improvements. We've had to raise the rent. It'll cost you a dollar a foot more for it'n Mister Merrion here told me you could afford which as I'm sure you realize isn't that great a deal for us. If the figure that he gave me, around two dollars a foot or so's all you can see your way clear to paying, well, that does limit what I can show you. But now if what you're telling me's that you think you may be able to go a bit more to get what you've got to have, we've got what you want."

Hilliard scowled and started to say something, but Merrion held up his hand. "Danny," he said, 'if I could get a word in here? I may be getting a little confused. It might help if I could get things cleared up here a little."

Hilliard shrugged. "Anything you think might help move this thing along."

"I must've given you the wrong impression, Brian," Merrion said. "I never said two-bucks-a-foot was the most we could afford. I never gave you any dollar-figure. When you showed me this space last week I said it looked pretty big. Maybe double what wed had in mind. And when I asked you how big it was, you said you'd have to check "but around a thousand feet, I think, eleven hundred feet." So I just did the easy thing, took the thousand-foot guess and multiplied it in my head, using two-bucks-a-foot as the number. Just trying to get some idea of what that would work out to be. Dollars-per-square-foot doesn't mean much to me; what I want is how-much-a-month.

"So when I said to you: "At two bucks a foot that'd work out, something in the neighborhood of two hundred bucks a month." And then: "Who pays for the heat?" that really was all I was doing. Just getting an idea, you know? Then you said you thought Mister Carnes'd say you couldn't let it go for less'n two-fifty, as though I'd just offered two, which I hadn't. I never gave you any figure at all, or anyway, never meant to.

I was just thinking out loud."

The agent looked bored and annoyed.

"And wouldn't my friend Roy'd say that since it's me," Hilliard said, 'who'd be renting this other space with the elevator, you should charge me the old rent? Roy's my campaign finance director. His office keeps my records. He knows how strapped for cash I am. Don't you think he'd want you to give me a break?"

"Mister Hilliard," the agent said, grinning, "I'm absolutely sure he wouldn't, and I'll tell you why that is. After Mister Merrion'd called and told me he was representing you, I decided maybe I'd better see Mister Carnes and fill him in. Because I know that Mister Carnes and Roy Junior, his son, and his brother, the Senator, all think very highly of you.

"I remember when you ran the second time for alderman Mister Carnes then told me when I went to vote for Roy Junior, for rep — his brother Arthur may've been running that year too, re-election to the senate he hoped not only that I'd vote for them but also vote for you. He said you were a very nice guy, and an excellent candidate all the Carneses were behind you.

"Well, if Mister Carries says it, that's enough for me. I took his suggestion, and not only did I give you my vote but I made sure my wife, and my sister, and father and mother, I asked them to vote for you, too. And I think they all did it, too, and every time you've run since then too. Which would mean, if they have, you've gotten five votes from our family every time you've run, ever since Mister Carnes said that to me. Although maybe not from my father, the first time. He went to school with Mister Gilson that may've swayed him the other way.

"So as soon as I found out who was interested in this space, I thought that maybe Mister Carnes'd want me to give you some sort of a discount which in this case would mean taking a loss. But seeing as how it was you, he might want to give you special treatment.

"So I asked Mister Carnes how I was to treat you, and quick as a flash, Mister Carnes came right back at me, and he said to me: "Why, the same as anyone else. You treat my young friend Daniel just the same way as you'd treat any other tenant prospect. Show him what we've got available that you think might meet his needs and give him the best price we can. The same one we always charge everyone in our buildings: the fairest and lowest price possible."

"That answers my question, I guess," Hilliard said.

"And he went on to say," the agent said, with delight, 'if you don't mind me saying this, also, that the Carnes family's already made quite a few large contributions to the various campaigns you've run. And to tell you he's got no intention throwing in the rent on top of that. He said: "Tell him we said wed support him. We never said wed adopt him."

Hilliard looked at Merrion. Merrion shrugged. "Hey," he said, 'always said there's no harm in asking. And besides, since I'm gonna be the one in there most of the time, the more people those stairs keep from coming up to bother me, the more I like no elevator."

The agent mentioned the amplitude of free parking on the steeply sloping lot out back: "That's what makes it so well-drained, when it rains," he said.

Merrion said: "It's also what makes it so slippery it's useless half the year." The agent looked perplexed. "You tellin' us you never heard inna wintertime cars go sliding down it backwards, end up crashing into the ones parked onna street? Even with their brakes on and the transmissions in gear. Mountain goats'd slide down that hill, they're on it, we get ice. Which's most likely why you got those iron posts on both sides of the curb-cut, you pull in the lot. Anna chain there you can hitch across it, block the entrance inna winter anytime we got a storm. So people like you who don't know about ice, never dream a thing like that could happen, can't drive their cars in there and park them, and end up where they cause a lotta damage. Which the Carnes family might then wind up getting' sued for, which is why there's no cars in it when we're gonna have a storm.

"Which is why it's most likely useless half of the year, when there's any chance of ice and that's the fifty percent that you really need it, there's no place to park onna street. A selling point that back lot is not. In fact what it is is a drawback."

The agent looked incredulous. "Really?" he said. "I never heard that before."

"Then you must've never worked inna car dealership here where they had their own body shop," Merrion said. "I did. You'd've been the guy who ordered trim parts and glass and mirrors for cars that got hit, and the taillight lenses and chrome; and then you hadda sit there and take it when the parts didn't come and the car-owners didn't like it, and blamed you when it happened; then you would know that it prolly did happen. Any number of times."

The agent looked chastened and said: "Well, I stand corrected." He called to Hilliard's attention the fact that the space was served by its own two separate restrooms. "So your people who work here wouldn't have to share these with anybody else. The way that all people in the other offices in the halls here on this floor have to do."

"Would have to," Merrion said, 'if there was anyone in those offices, now. Which there hasn't been any since the S-and-H Green Stamp people moved all their operation here down to Springfield."

"And I'll bet you a quarter," Hilliard said, 'that if I go in what used to be the boy's room sixteen years or so ago when I was one of the poor boys Miss Jocelyn was making their lives miserable for here, I would find that the toilet nearest the door still doesn't flush all the way unless you hold the handle on the chain down and then it sprays you so you look like you pissed your pants and that it's still got the same old wooden seat it had then; never been replaced."

"Mister Hilliard," the agent said, "I really don't know, I'm just the guy who does the rentals. I don't handle repairs or do maintenance, anything like that. They give me a list of the premises vacant. I rent them as best I can. You know more about toilets than I do.